"It won't do, Abe," said he. "You commit suicide."
"You'd better stick to the pear, Abe," said Mr. Medill, "and fight Stephen A. Douglas here and now. This isn't any picnic. Do you know who he is?"
"Why, yes, Joe," said Mr. Lincoln, amiably. "He's a man with tens of thousands of blind followers. It's my business to make some of those blind followers see."
By this time Stephen was burning to know the question that Mr. Lincoln wished to ask the Little Giant, and why the other gentlemen were against it. But Mr. Lincoln surprised him still further in taking him by the arm. Turning to the young reporter, Mr. Hill, who had finished his writing, he said:
"Bob, a little air will do you good. I've had enough of the old boys for a while, and I'm going to talk to somebody any own age."
Stephen was halfway down the corridor when he discovered that he had forgotten his hat. As he returned he heard somebody say:
"If that ain't just like Abe. He stopped to pull a flea out of his stocking when he was going to fight that duel with Shields, and now he's walking with boys before a debate with the smartest man in this country. And there's heaps of things he ought to discuss with us."
"Reckon we haven't got much to do with it," said another, half laughing, half rueful. "There's some things Abe won't stand."
From the stairs Stephen saw Mr. Lincoln threading his way through the crowd below, laughing at one, pausing to lay his hand on the shoulder of another, and replying to a rough sally of a third to make the place a tumult of guffaws. But none had the temerity to follow him. When Stephen caught up with him in the little country street, he was talking earnestly to Mr. Hill, the young reporter of the Press and Tribune. And what do you think was the subject? The red comet in the sky that night. Stephen kept pace in silence with Mr. Lincoln's strides, another shock in store for him. This rail-splitter, this postmaster, this flat-boatman, whom he had not credited with a knowledge of the New Code, was talking Astronomy. And strange to say, Mr. Brice was learning.
"Bob," said Mr. Lincoln, "can you elucidate the problem of the three bodies?"